SEOUL, South Korea — A team of high-level Russian diplomats is visiting Pyongyang, but their mission in the North Korean capital is unknown.
The delegation arrived on Saturday, led by Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko, Ukrainian media UATV reported on Sunday.
The trip comes ahead of a possible U.S.-brokered ceasefire to halt the fighting in a war that has been underway since February 2022. UATV speculated that the Russians aimed to coordinate with North Korea on the ceasefire and discuss further military cooperation in the conflict.
The meeting comes at a time when Ukraine’s only salient on Russian soil, in Kursk Oblast, is shrinking, possibly collapsing. That may be significant for the future use of North Korean troops in the conflict.
North Korean troops have, so far, fought exclusively on Russian soil, per the terms of a 2024 bilateral treaty. If Russian terrain is fully recaptured, the possibility of North Korean troops fighting in Ukraine proper may come under discussion.
In Pyongyang on June 18, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” that surprised analysts with both its scale and its commitments.
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According to an in-depth South Korean analysis, Article 4 of the 23-article treaty states: “In case any one of the two sides is put in a state of war by an armed invasion … the other side shall provide military and other assistance with all means in its possession.”
The treaty adds that the clause is subject to Article 51 of the U.N. Charter. Article 51 grants states the right to national or collective defense if they come under armed attack.
For months after the treaty’s signing, North Korea supplied Russia with munitions and artillery, but not troops. That changed only after combat shifted from Ukrainian to Russian soil.
On Aug. 6, 2024, Kiev’s forces, in a surprise counterattack, stormed across the frontier into Russia’s Kursk Oblast. The lodgment embarrassed the Kremlin and forced it to deploy crack units — including airborne, marine, Chechen and spetsnaz units, and subsequently, fiberoptic drone operators.
North Korean soldiers also joined the counterattack. Kim’s troops began appearing in Russia in October 2024 and were in action in Kursk as winter descended.
They have fought exclusively in the Russian oblast, not in any other parts of the frontlines — which the Dupuy Institute estimated to be 1,050 miles long in 2024 — in Ukrainian territory.
For months, Kursk has seen some of the war’s most intense fighting, but current indications are that Kiev’s troops are retreating from their Russian lodgment.
”Russian forces continued offensive operations in Kursk Oblast,” U.S. think tank the Institute for the Study of War wrote on March 15. They have “not completely pushed Ukrainian forces out of the area as of this publication,” the ISW wrote, but Kiev’s troops are “in a difficult tactical situation.”
An estimated 12,000 to 13,000 North Koreans have been central to Russian operations in Kursk.
Not only are their numbers significant, but their units are also fresh and cohesive. That sets them apart from Russian units that have been constantly reinforced and reformed due to losses suffered in three years of fighting.
Multiple Ukrainian sources have stated that the North Korean soldiers are more motivated than Russians — almost always fighting to the death — are more physically fit and are better marksmen.
Used as shock troops and suffering from poor interoperability with Russian units, their casualties have been heavy, and they briefly withdrew from combat in January. But President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Feb. 8 that they had returned to the battlefield.
According to South Korean intelligence in February, the North’s units may have been reinforced.
Recent media attention has focused on an unorthodox Russian assault through a gas pipeline into Ukraine’s rear in Kursk. But frontline sources told The New York Times last week that it was North Korean assault units, together with improved Russian drone units, that were primarily responsible for Moscow’s advances.
The sources said that North Koreans had learned from their early battlefield experiences and improved their tactics. They have also added fire support from organic North Korean artillery units.
Ukrainian sources quoted by specialist media NK News called North Korean troops “pivotal” to the success of Russian operations in Kursk.
